But she’s wrong. Nothing has ever been more real than this.
“If you don’t like it, you’re welcome to break up with me,” I challenge.
She says nothing, looking only at her hands.
My hand is laid against the back of the couch, and as I wait for her answer, I curl my palm around the back of her neck,tracing the tan lines where her sports bra stops, stroking the warm skin until it elicits a shiver. My mouth waters with the need to taste the salt of her skin. “Well?”
She opens her eyes, her voice breathless, unable to hide the effect I’m having on her. “Maybe tomorrow. I’m too busy today.”
CHAPTER32
FEELINGS? NO THANK YOU, I’M FULL
IVY
I met Villainina in the hallway between our apartments. She crashed through her door, opposite mine, late for her performance at the city’s first and best (and second seediest) drag bar. I’m honestly trash for sequins, but it was the way she took one look at me and said “love the shoes; we can work on the rest” that made me obsessed.
I laughed and shouted “your lace is showing” at her back (it wasn’t) and she flipped me off with a smile.
Filipe knocked on my door the next night, sans the Villainina look but with all of the attitude, and we’ve been sparring buddies since— literally and figuratively— Fil’s trained in capoeira, but we stick to boxing drills to burn off the booze and bitchiness.
“Just tell him you want to date for real,” Fil says, throwing his pads to the floor and wiping the sweat off his forehead with his forearm.
“Oh my god,” I say dramatically, peeling off the Velcro and unwinding my wraps. “Why didn’t I think of that? I should just be honest. Because a man has never lied about his feelings.”
Filipe laughs, grabbing two water bottles from his fridge. “Trust me, I heard it as soon as it came out of my mouth.” He tosses me a bottle, then downs half of his own in one long gulp. “It’s really not a choice, is it?”
I shake my head as I swallow, relishing the icy relief. “Remember Rhys?” I ask, throwing myself down on Fil’s settee. “Emails me in the middle of the night— emails, like it’s the late nineteen hundreds— about how I’m the first person he’s been able to open up to, how we have something special. Then he goes and blocks my number before I’ve even woken up.”
I sigh.
“Men,” we groan in unison.
“So you’re just not going to say anything? That sounds healthy,” Fil says, gulping down the last of his water and tossing the empty bottle toward the trash. “What if he’s waiting for you? Rejection has got to be better than not knowing.”
It knocks at the little door in my mind where I’ve been stuffing all my hopes that perhaps this could be exactly as good as it’s been. That I’m not imagining anything at all. But then, that’s what I thought with all the others. “My big mouth is what got us into this situation in the first place. I’m not going to make everything ten times worse by admitting I’m falling for him too.”
Fil isn’t moved by my logic. “So instead, you’re going to keep up the charade, and hurt yourself over and over again until you can’t take it anymore. What a great plan.”
“Wow, just punch me straight in the face next time,” I groan.
Of course I’d date Lincoln. I’m hopeless, I’m not deranged. He’s intriguing, confident, self-possessed. Kind of adorable, when he’s with his sister or Manny, and then, holy shit, is he a demon in the sack. A fucking natural disaster in the way he can fuck me up and mesmerize me.
“I want to. It’s just…” I’m scared. “Everything with him is so big and intense, and it’s great. But I’ve been swept up in it before, getting my hopes up based on nothing, only to find out I’m stranded out on emotion island by myself.”
I like Lincoln with a fierceness that is embarrassing. He’s confident and fun, and every time I look at his hands, I get overwhelmed with the urge to have them tearing off my clothes or dragging me in for a world-bending kiss.
But that’s not what I’m afraid of. The scary, heart-racing, can’t-breathe problem is that I’ve started lying in bed imagining our future together.
Fil takes the seat next to me, dabbing at the sweat on his neck with a towel.
“I’m screwed, aren’t I?” I ask him.
“You’ll survive,” Fil says, but I don’t think I will.
CHAPTER33
GROWING FOND OF YOU
